


Perfectionist

by ConvenientAlias



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms
Genre: Age Difference, F/F, First Time, Lack of Communication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 05:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13629219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: It's been a long time since Carlotta tried this hard with anybody.





	Perfectionist

It was quite a responsibility to be someone’s first love.

Not that Carlotta had never experienced this before. Most of her amores, to be fair, had been older than her—male patrons of the opera house for the most part, and a couple older women, who found themselves wanting more of her than her voice. She had rarely refused that kind of attention. As long as they understood she was a public figure, and liable to offer as much to anyone who asked, she didn’t mind sharing her bed with them. It enkindled in them a sort of loyalty to her work, and it was pleasurable and flattering.

But she’d had some younger loves too. Younger actors who were so infatuated with her that she couldn’t resist giving them a little of what they wanted. Once or twice a patron who swore to her they’d “never felt this way before”. She didn’t take their infatuations seriously. Most of the time.

Christine was different.

Carlotta wasn’t entirely sure that she was the first person Christine had fallen for. Christine sometimes told stories about one Raoul de Chagny from her childhood which were painted with gold and flattering color. Nevertheless, she got the sense that she was the first person Christine had really loved seriously. And when Christine was serious, Carlotta couldn’t help but be serious too. It was different from those other young men and women who had cast themselves at her feet. Christine didn’t do that. She told Carlotta how she felt and what she wanted and asked for nothing, but waited to see if Carlotta felt the same. Inevitably, Carlotta would get annoyed at her lack of neediness. Inevitably, Carlotta found herself wanting even more than Christine.

Christine would say she wanted Carlotta to kiss her—and then do nothing. Two days later Carlotta would have to find the time and the place and practically coax Christine into a kiss, which Christine would calmly return. Christine would say she wanted to spend a day with Carlotta in the park, but Carlotta would have to arrange it with their schedules and choose the place and beg Christine to come. Christine would say she admired Carlotta’s singing, but would never ask Carlotta to sing for her. And when Carlotta did sing for her, she smiled but never praised. Sometimes Carlotta wondered if she looked foolish trying to impress Christine with her performance. It was not as if Christine could not sing just as well.

But Christine told Carlotta very seriously that she had not done this with anyone before—the kissing, the romantic evenings, the courting. And she gave Carlotta a pointed look when she said that, as if to tell Carlotta that she had better do a good job, because being Christine’s first love was a privilege, while everyone knew being one of Carlotta’s loves was a cinch if you had either money or looks.

Carlotta was trying to do a good job.

Christine never told Carlotta she wanted to go to bed. Carlotta had to do that. Ask Christine seriously and carefully if she wanted to sleep together, because Christine always laughed off her seductions or shrugged them away. Christine liked to Talk Things Through.

Christine thought it over for a while and then nodded. “Would tonight work?”

Carlotta had not expected it to be that easy. She swallowed. “Yes.” Of course yes. She hadn’t slept with a patron in months, leaving her evenings all depressingly free. Now she spent that time on daydreaming instead of getting what she wanted.

They met in Carlotta’s apartment, which she cleaned for the occasion. Christine admired the hangings on the wall. She touched an old poster. “From when you were an ingénue.”

Carlotta did not like Christine’s tone, which suggested that Carlotta’s ingénue days were so far behind that it was odd to be reminded of them. She hated worse her immediate impulse to brag about the good old days. That was what boring old women did, singers past their prime. She could not be that in Christine’s eyes. She refused to be that in Christine’s eyes.

Abruptly, Christine said, “How do you want to do this?”

“Oh…there’s no one set way.”

Christine put her jacket on a chair. “We’ve had dinner. I’ve been waiting.” She turned to Carlotta. “Do you kiss me? Is that how we start?”

“It’s a good way to start,” Carlotta allowed. Before she was done speaking Christine had put her arms around Carlotta’s neck—no easy feat with Carlotta still wearing her massive fur coat. She laughed and pushed Christine off, then grabbed her back again, more accessible. Christine was getting better at kissing. She took hints here as well as she did from a choir director. A good student.

They stumbled into the bedroom and helped each other undress. From here on, Christine was more hesitant. She followed Carlotta’s signals carefully and dutifully. Had the color not risen in her cheeks and her breath gotten harder, Carlotta would have had a hard time telling she was even enjoying it. She sat with her back perfectly straight, almost completely still except when Carlotta gave her pointers. Even when she came, she only gave a little gasp. For a singer she was oddly quiet.

 She tried to touch Carlotta and Carlotta stopped her. “Not tonight. You wouldn’t know how.”

“I can learn.”

“Not tonight.” It was the first time Carlotta had denied her something she really wanted.

Christine was quiet for a moment. Then she put her shift back on. She asked Carlotta, “Do you get pleasure out of giving pleasure?”

She asked it with a completely straight face. Carlotta considered it. “Yes, depending on the person. If I like the person.”

Christine huffed.

“You needn’t be too proud. There are no rules about this sort of thing.”

“You are going to get bored of me,” Christine said.

Carlotta looked at her. Her sincere frown. Her hands clenched against the mattress. “Why would I get bored of you, bella?”

“I’m doing everything wrong. Don’t your seductions usually go much faster?”

“Usually?” Seductions?

“You’re in and out of a man’s pants in a month half the time. I…don’t your attentions usually wander faster than this?” Christine was almost as flushed as she had been when Carlotta had her fingers in her cunt. “Usually you play with someone, and you have sex with them, and then you move on.”

“There’s not a set system.” Carlotta was beginning to get irritated. “Besides, I have been taking this at your speed, haven’t I? Do you wish we were going faster?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know how any of this works! You’re the one who…” Christine gestured madly. “I’m the ingénue. I don’t know how to have a casual affair.” Her voice broke slightly.

Carlotta hesitantly put a hand on Christine’s back. “Lack of experience is not necessarily a bad thing.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“After you’ve had sex with a hundred men, you find…”

“That you actually know what you’re doing.”

“…that sex can be a lot of different things. Often it can be quite boring, simply a pastime. That’s all a lot of people want. Sometimes that’s all I want and I move on within days.” She slid her hand down to Christine’s hip. “Other times I want more. I truly connect with someone. I grow fond.”

“So you’re fond of me.”

“Yes. No. I.” Would Christine be so cruel as to make her say this? “The way I am with you, I have not been with anyone else in some time.”

Christine stared at her. She let out a little tinkling laugh. “Are you trying to say you love me, Carlotta?”

“I don’t know.” Carlotta ran her hands through her hair. “I don’t know if a woman like me can really love anymore. I hope this is love. I’ve been trying to make it love.” She shrugged. “You deserve to have your first to be someone who loves you.”

Her own first had been a man who came to her home village. He’d heard her sing and promised he could make her a big star. She’d thought it was love at the time. Now she knew better. Christine deserved more than a bitter illusion. She deserved everything Carlotta could give her. Perfection, like the kind of love you saw in the operas. And the loves of operas always ended sadly but at least they were beautiful and great and good, much more than any of Carlotta’s thousand flings had ever been.

“I don’t expect you to love me,” Christine said, a half smile on her face.

“What do you expect from me then?”

“Well. I don’t know.” Christine looked away. “I wanted you to kiss me at first. I was surprised when you really did. I thought you’d laugh at me, or that that would be it. But I don’t know what you want this to be.”

Carlotta kissed her again then, only on the forehead, light on her hairline. She murmured, “I want to give you everything you dream of.”

“What makes you think I dream?”

“All ingénues dream. They dream of the one lover who will make them feel. The one who will make life greater than it is. They dream that love can be worth something.”

“Is that what you dreamed?”

“I don’t remember.”

Christine sighed. She leaned on Carlotta. “You don’t need to be a dream lover. The way you are is fine.”

Carlotta had heard lovers call her a wonder, a marvel, an artist, a goddess, a miracle of the Lord’s creation. Tonight her lover called her fine, and she felt it was the greatest compliment she had ever received.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for a request of "I hope its love. I'm trying really hard to make it love" for Carlotta/Christine. So, a fic of Carlotta trying really hard, and hopefully succeeding?


End file.
